I just noticed today that Signal (not talking Molly) is now available on F-Droid via the “Guardian” repository.
Just wanted to give everyone a heads up.
I just noticed today that Signal (not talking Molly) is now available on F-Droid via the “Guardian” repository.
Just wanted to give everyone a heads up.
It’s weird that this isn’t mentioned on the signal website or blog? They also distribute the binary with a signature you can check there if you want a non-play store source that’s actually verifiable.
It’s probably not an official thing. F-Droid can’t distribute apps in the official repo via their own policy if the developer doesn’t agree. Third-party repos like Guardian can.
If it’s not official, how do you verify who is building the binary?
I think they ship prebuilt binaries, i.e. the exact same ones you find on the Signal website
AFAIK this also applies to Tor Browser, Orbot and other third-party apps distributed by Guardian
Edit: I downloaded the files and manually verified the signatures. They are indeed the exact same files.
Because I didn’t really know how to grab an APK from the Guardian F-Droid repo, I used their S3 bucket and downloaded the Signal APK. It’s named
Signal-Android-website-prod-universal-release-7.30.2.apk, which is the exact same file name as the one of the APK you can get from the Signal website.I then used
keytoolto print the signature certificate fingerprint: (renamed the files to make it less confusing)Signer #1: Certificate #1: Owner: CN=Whisper Systems, OU=Research and Development, O=Whisper Systems, L=Pittsburgh, ST=PA, C=US Issuer: CN=Whisper Systems, OU=Research and Development, O=Whisper Systems, L=Pittsburgh, ST=PA, C=US Serial number: 4bfbebba Valid from: Tue May 25 17:24:42 CEST 2010 until: Tue May 16 17:24:42 CEST 2045 Certificate fingerprints: SHA1: 45:98:9D:C9:AD:87:28:C2:AA:9A:82:FA:55:50:3E:34:A8:87:93:74 SHA256: 29:F3:4E:5F:27:F2:11:B4:24:BC:5B:F9:D6:71:62:C0:EA:FB:A2:DA:35:AF:35:C1:64:16:FC:44:62:76:BA:26 Signature algorithm name: SHA1withRSA (weak) Subject Public Key Algorithm: 1024-bit RSA key (weak) Version: 3Signer #1: Certificate #1: Owner: CN=Whisper Systems, OU=Research and Development, O=Whisper Systems, L=Pittsburgh, ST=PA, C=US Issuer: CN=Whisper Systems, OU=Research and Development, O=Whisper Systems, L=Pittsburgh, ST=PA, C=US Serial number: 4bfbebba Valid from: Tue May 25 17:24:42 CEST 2010 until: Tue May 16 17:24:42 CEST 2045 Certificate fingerprints: SHA1: 45:98:9D:C9:AD:87:28:C2:AA:9A:82:FA:55:50:3E:34:A8:87:93:74 SHA256: 29:F3:4E:5F:27:F2:11:B4:24:BC:5B:F9:D6:71:62:C0:EA:FB:A2:DA:35:AF:35:C1:64:16:FC:44:62:76:BA:26 Signature algorithm name: SHA1withRSA (weak) Subject Public Key Algorithm: 1024-bit RSA key (weak) Version: 3The fingerprints are identical.
Another edit: I just noticed that Signal even has official instructions for checking the signature on their APK download page. They use
apksignerinstead ofkeytool, but it’s basically the same process.Thanks for doing this!
Takes like 2 minutes 😅
You have quite a bit of background knowledge to know how to do that though, you should give yourself more credit!
Thanks, I mean I used to work as a Java developer before, and I’m quite interested in the Android platform, so I’m familiar with the SDK and build tools, and know how app signatures work
But it’s really not that hard to figure out. There are countless guides on the internet, and as I said, Signal even has a quick guide for how to verify the APK signature on the download page
Can confirm, the repository was Guardian Project
I know, it even says so in the post:
Haha it would help if I could read 🤣